Conventional filter tip attachment machines are associated typically with filter makers designed to form a continuous filter rod such as can be advanced longitudinally though a cutter head and divided into discrete sticks of length corresponding to a multiple of the length of the filter tip attached to a single cigarette. The cut sticks are then intercepted and fed along a direction transverse to the longitudinal direction followed by the rod, utilizing diverter devices of conventional type such as will convert the axial movement the stick into a movement transverse to its longitudinal axis, and directed thus into the infeed hopper of a filter tip attachment machine. Thereafter, the filter sticks are taken up from the bottom of the hopper onto a roller with peripheral flutes and, still advancing in a direction transverse to their longitudinal axes, conveyed into a further cutting station where they are cut transversely in such a way as to generate double length filter plugs, that is to say plugs twice the length of the filter tip associated with a single cigarette.
It has been found that conventional units for feeding filters as outlined above are unable, when used in combination with ultra high speed filter tip attachment machines of the current generation, to guarantee a constant and correctly ordered supply of filter sticks to the hopper.
In addition, the feed units currently in use are not able to ensure a swift and precise compensation of differences in output between the filter making and filter tip attachment machines.
The object of the present invention is to provide a unit for feeding filters to a filter tip attachment machine that will be unaffected by the drawbacks mentioned above.